


Thoughts After a Storm

by TWDObsessive



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Awkward Daryl, Falling In Love, First Kiss, M/M, Nonverbal Communication, POV Daryl Dixon, POV First Person, Pining, Virgin Daryl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 15:16:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7513171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive/pseuds/TWDObsessive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl thinks about his complicated relationship with Rick after the tornado passes them in the barn during season five.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thoughts After a Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd one-shot. Sooo... I indulged in some drinking last night. And this morning I woke up and opened google docs to prep my next Rockstar chapter and what did I find?? Apparently I randomly started writing a first kiss one-shot with a buzz!! LOL! It's a little rough around the edges, but what the hell! Might as well post it since it's written! :-)
> 
> Update- Thanks to Bella Monoxide who messaged me after I posted with quite a few typo and spelling corrections. I'm sloppy when I've been drinking! Thanks for the post-beta beta'ing, Bella! Much appreciated!!! :-)

He looks at me like no one on earth ever has before. I noticed that early on. The quarry days, the Atlanta days. He wanted to know me, to understand me and I’ve never known anyone that was more interested in knowing me than using me.

Loyalty is strong in me. I know that. It’s not a surprise that I yearn for someone to follow and believe in. For a while it was Merle because there was no one else. But when Rick came busting into our camp at the quarry? Man, in no time at all there was nothing else in the world for me. He was the man I always wanted Merle to be. The man _I_ always wanted to be. He had morals and principles and he _saw_ people. He saw me. He saw me despite the venom I spat at him for leaving Merle in the city.

He saw me and he knew instantly that I was good. Unlike the world before and the people in it, he didn’t just see my shaggy hair and tattoos and ripped jeans and assume I was bad. I’m not bad. I’ve never been bad. But no one ever knew that. Rick saw more than the surface. He saw intent and emotion and loyalty and determination. He saw _me_. Within just moments, he knew me better than some of the folks in the camp that I’d been with for months. He didn’t just see a dirty, pissed-off redneck. He saw a man with a brother. A man with pride and honor and obligation, a man who was good at his core.

Rick knew. He knew the moment he offered to go back to Atlanta for my brother. He saw my goodness. And he couldn’t leave my blood on a roof alone to die, regardless of how much of a dick Merle was. When he offered to leave the family he just reunited with in order to rescue my family, I knew I was indebted. I was his forever. And regardless of what would happen when we made our way back into Atlanta, I would follow this man until the end of time. He’d shown me himself. And I would owe him forever. Because a man who would find value in my brother’s life, is a man I would value back. Forever.

I’ve been in love with Rick since the moment I met him. Since the moment I hated him for leaving my brother tied to a roof. You know why? Because Merle didn’t intimidate him. Rick worked for the greater good and he made the hard decisions. And when he met me and he realized that Merle was all I had; it became his mission to give back to me what he had taken.

I was in love with Rick when we met back up on the main road after the farm, his expression so relieved to see me; as if I was important. I was in love with him when he lost himself at the prison. When he had a newborn that he couldn’t care for. He went after my brother. And Merle was an asshole. Judith was an angel. So I bundled her up and I fed her and I sang to her when Rick was not well enough to do it on his own. 

He thanked me. For what I don’t know because caring for Judith was a fuck of a lot easier than chasing after Merle. 

There were many times Rick looked at me and made me feel important. When he saw me with Judith. When I offered myself to the Claimers on the roadside. When I saved him countless times with a well-placed arrow. When I nodded to him during decisions. I was behind him, always. 

But now, here it was. We were nowhere. Beth was dead. We had no walls, no fences, no home. We were on the run again like in the old days. The storm had passed, a tornado. We were broken and hurt and ready to surrender... . all of us. But when it came to life or death we all rose to the occasion. Our family piled behind me at the door to keep out not just god’s wrath of wind and rain, but the devil’s wrath of walkers. 

Rick looked at me as we pushed against that door, his hand next to mine. His eyes told me that this was not the end. That there was more for us. That ending now would be too Shakespearean for words. Ending now would be unacceptable. After the wrath of heaven and hell passed us, everyone went to sleep. Exhausted. Spent. Hungry and depressed. They turned off. But me and Rick? We were rejuvenated. 

We walked outside to see by starlight and a quarter moon that the group of walkers had all been miraculously impaled by branches and trees. 

“We keep getting lucky,” he said. 

I laughed and questioned it with a raised brow. “We ain’t had food in days. Water’s low. We’re tired, exhausted. We’ve lost… we’ve lost people. We got no home, no walls and no direction. But all you see is that we’re lucky,” I answered quietly, shaking my head at the optimism in him. 

“Still breathing. Still together,” he said.

There was something different about this close call. It wasn’t hand-to-hand with walkers or men. It wasn’t a fight that we could be strong for. It was the earth trying to swallow us whole, so it was slow and we were weaponless against wind and nature. We were able to think. To worry about having it all end right then and there.

“A thing like that,” Rick said, pointing over at the barn doors that our family slept peacefully behind, “makes you think about what you’d miss and what you wished you’d have done before it was all over.”

I nodded. I’d had the same thoughts. I’d miss holding Judith and watching her grow. I’d miss having these people, this family, depend on me and trust me. I’d miss Rick’s eyes on me. Miss the butterflies I got when he whispered close or rested a hand on my elbow when he spoke. 

I don’t know how to express myself physically. I’m awkward. Barely understand my own body when it tries to tell me what it wants. I never been with anyone. Not like _that_. Not before the walkers and certainly not after. Never had the urges. Never saw someone that made my heart speed up or gave me these butterflies. Never had a conversation with just glances. No one ever gave me goosebumps. And sure as shit no one ever got the kind of reaction I was trying to hide in my pants. 

For me, I did what I had to do to relieve pressure like any other red-blooded male. Never did much looking at porn for it. Didn’t really think about anyone during it. It was more like a bodily function. A need to empty that was not much different than going to the bathroom. I know that makes me unusual. But there’s nothing I can do to make me something I’m not.

But now, things are different. When the time comes that I’m uncomfortable and need to lay a hand on myself for relief, my mind isn’t blank. It’s filled with Rick. The way he walks, his voice, the feel of his hands on me, the smell of him like dirt and determination. I have followed him for years now like a lost puppy, but I know he doesn’t see me that way. He sees me as his equal, his friend, his brother. And I love to be seen by him. 

He was looking up at the sky now that the clouds had passed. He was deep in thought. I leaned against one of the uprooted trees and watched the same sky as him. I had been struggling since losing Beth and Rick knew it, like he always knew everything. The past week had been hard, quiet. Solemn.

“I wouldn’t be able to keep doing this without you, Daryl. You know that, right?” 

He wasn’t looking at me when he said it, he kept his eyes in the stars. “Yeah, you could.”

“No,” he said, cutting off my response. He looked at me and walked closer, bow legs and curls and eyes that were suddenly more onyx than sapphire. There was a riot of butterflies in my belly when he put a hand against the side of my face. “I don’t want to wonder anymore, Daryl.”

“Wonder what?” I asked him. I thought I’d said it loud and comfortable, but I heard my voice and is was so small and shy. I knew what. I could read it in his eyes like I’d been seeing it for months, convincing myself it was just my wild imagination. He wanted to kiss me. I parted my lips to show him my permission and gave him the slightest of nods. 

I closed my eyes and felt his other hand in my hair. A moment went by where I wondered if he was going to kiss me or not. I felt his breath ghost my lips and I waited, my eyes squeezed shut, half in fear and half in excitement. Finally, I felt him. Those soft, full lips pressing gently against mine. My heart was thudding so loud I wondered if he could hear it and before I realized it, I was saying just that against Rick’s soft kiss.

“My heart is so fucking loud it’s gonna draw walkers,” I murmured against his lips and I could feel the shape of them turn up into a smile. 

“Does that mean it’s ok for me to keep kissing you?” he asked, his lips tickling against mine as he spoke. “Because I really want to be close to you right now.”

“I… I like kissing,” I answered even though I never kissed nobody in my life but him. Wasn’t a lie though. My thirty seconds of experience had made me realize that I do like kissing. I like kissing Rick, anyway. Kissing him was gentle but strong at the same time. It was closeness, softness. He tasted like embers from a dying fire. Like strength and rain and earth. It wasn’t cold out, but his touch gave me chills. He kept a hand on my cheek and the other sifting through my hair. His lips brushed mine repeatedly until I opened more and he slipped his tongue inside. It was so intimate to be this close and to have parts of ourselves entangled. I wanted more of him and I slipped my hands onto his waist. 

He moaned at my touch and I liked the idea that I was the one to make that sound fall from his lips. “I wasn’t sure if you’d push me away,” he said as he pulled back to look into my eyes so he could read my response. He knows me. He knows that my expression would tell him more than my words would.

“I like this,” I said. It was too simple. It wasn't’ enough to describe what I was feeling and what I wanted. But I’ve never been good with words. Rick looked at me and kissed against my lips again. He lowered a hand to one of mine and held it in his own like kids used to do back in high school. 

“I like this, too,” he said. “I think we should do it more often.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can thank (or blame) a six-pack of Red's Blueberry Cider for this! :-)


End file.
